


A Snowball's Chance

by tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Bondage, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Comics/Movie Crossover, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Post-Siberia Scene in Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tentacle Sex, Venom: Lethal Protector
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2019-11-19 05:07:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18131357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Eddie gets a ping on his radar, Symbiote activity in Siberia, of all places.Problem is... when he gets there, Tony Stark is already checking it out, and he doesn't appreciate the "help."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celtic7irish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celtic7irish/gifts).



> This story has a lot of comic book elements in it, especially from Venom: Dark Origins and Venom: Lethal Protector. I've made extensive use of the notes, but if you're confused, check there.
> 
> \-- this story will publish 1 chapter every other Saturday until finished.

Josef Sokolov had always been meant for better things. Born to a wealthy shipping baron by means of an evening's entertainment -- no one really knew who his mother was, Josef was dropped in his father's door in the early morning, along with a note.

The child might have frozen to death, Severodvinsk was never comfortable in early March. But he lived.

He might have been rejected by his father, and no one would have blamed Vasily in the slightest. There wouldn't have been any reason to even have the baby tested for paternity. Vasily could have dropped the infant off at the orphanage without guilt

(For that matter, it had been whispered that more dire things could have happened and no one would have said anything. Vasily was a harsh landlord and employer. A tribute to the older ways.)

None of those things happened

Vasily took the cold child in and tended him.

Much later Josef had found the note from his unknown mother and decided that the only reason Vasily had taken him in was because, instead of a name, the letter was signed “hail Hydra.”

His father made sure Josef had the best of everything. The best schooling, the best training. He'd been introduced at a young age to certain Hydra members who took over his training.

Instead of going off to University like his friends, Josef entered a more demanding school. The Hydra Preparatory Academy -- there were dozens of them scattered around the globe, in Murmansk, in the appalachian area of the Eastern United States, near Bogeta, in Columbia. Anywhere that Hydra’s children could go, to learn, to study, to compete. Or, to be quietly buried and left unmourned, if they didn’t pass their tests.

Josef rode rapidly through the base ranks, daring and aggressive. Trained with the Winter Soldier and the girls from the Red Room.

Josef became an asset, an assassin and a political weapon. And when the Winter Soldier's mission to recover the rebirth serum was successful, Josef was the first to volunteer.

“And thus,” the man said who was reading through Josef's file, while Josef was contained in cryo -- he was thawing and aware but he couldn't yet move -- “you will be the first to die.”

Josef made an effort. He couldn't, wouldn't, beg for his life. But he needed to know. Why?

“You can't imagine anyone wants some monster like you lose in the world? You're unnatural. People like you have destroyed too much.”

“My brothers? My sister?” They were not related, not by blood, but the Winter Springs were family.

“They will die, as well. I would say it's nothing personal, except that it is. It's very personal.”

Josef burned. His fury made his blood pump faster, he was thawing faster. _Keep him talking. Give yourself time._ “Who are you?”

“Helmut Zemo,” the man said with a shrug. “Take it with you when you die.”

Josef memorized the man's face. “I will.”

There was a burst of agony as Zemo put his pistol to Josef's forehead and pulled the trigger.

After some time, Josef wasn't entirely surprised to find that he was not, in fact, dead.

“They died without pain, if it matters,” Zemo was saying.

There were more people. Josef managed to open his eyes, just enough to see what was going on. Zemo had… enemies? He was taunting them with the deaths of the soldiers. With… more information.

The enemies turned on each other, rather than killing Zemo. Josef got a brief glimpse of the original Winter Soldier. Weak. Pathetic. He was weeping over the death of… Howard Stark.

Which meant the man in armor was Anthony Stark, all grown up. How long had he and the other soldiers been in cryo? Stark had been a boy and now…

The man in blue, Cap? Captain America?

Zemo slipped away.

The fight continued, leaving Anthony half dead. The Winter Soldier didn't even check on them. Didn't even look back.

_Traitor! I'll kill you. Kill you all._

Time passed.

Someone came, eventually, and took Stark from the bunker.

Josef's body healed, slow. Agonizing. He managed to get out of the cryo tube.

Ivan was undoubtedly dead. And Marcus. And Kseniya had been clinging to life. She was still warm when Josef reached her, but he couldn't bring her back. He couldn't save any of them.

Surrounded by his dead, Josef raged. They would pay for this. They would all pay.

But first, Josef needed to heal. He needed to regain strength.

He needed… information.

He dragged himself to the console.

He would live. He would live, and get his vengeance.

***

“So, uh, do you actually know what you’re doing?” Eddie wondered. He didn’t know what she was doing, several computers up and running at once, a briefcase with a machine in it that made noises from time to time, and a rolling chair that she used to shove herself from one side of the room to the other. With an accompanying _weeee_ under her breath.

“If I admit that I have utterly no idea what I’m doing,” Darcy Lewis said, “does that mean you’re going to stop paying me?”

“I’m paying you?” Eddie asked. He didn’t know that, no one had said anything about pay.

He was half of a vigilante superhero (sort of) team, but it didn’t pay well, and he was still trying to recover from losing his job and being out of work for like two years and all the debt that went with that (his father had bailed him out from time to time, but still, he was digging…) He’d been told that Darcy was going to help him as a _favor_.

“I kid, I kid,” she said, tapping something into one of the computers. “You don’t have to pay me. And I absolutely know what I’m doing. I’ve been chasing literal gods across the universe for the last few years, tracking a couple of alien symbiotes shouldn’t be a problem.”

 **It is not that we expect them, Miss Doctor Dan’s sister,** Venom said, sticking his face out of Eddie’s shoulder so he could talk to Darcy himself. **It is that we will rest easier, knowing they are not here.**

“Just Darcy’s fine, Vee,” Darcy said. She patted the blob of alien goo on the forehead, as if the fact that Venom had teeth longer than kitchen knives didn’t bother her in the slightest. Maybe it didn’t. She was the girl who’d knocked Thor out with a taser. (Dan Lewis, Anne’s boyfriend, had told that story with more than a little bit of pride.)

Darcy removed a small drive from her pocket and plugged it in.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, it’s a password algorithm,” Darcy said. “Basically, it’s a little program that grants access to servers and data that we probably shouldn’t be looking at, but I don’t really care about the data that’s being protected, I just want to hide our little seeker program inside their satellite uplinks.”

“Is what we’re doing… illegal?”

“Only if their security is better than Tony Stark’s tech,” Darcy said, tapping the keyboard. “Which, it’s not.”

“Where’d you get that from?”

“Um, I might have copied it from my boss, who kinda borrowed it from Stark Tower without, you know, asking,” Darcy said, going all shifty eyed.

**I like her, Eddie.**

“So,” Darcy said, swapping out drives and typing some more, “here’s what I did, in layman’s terms. Which does not actually mean you need to lay down--” she laughed at her own joke. “Venom, based on the tissue samples that my brother took, has a distinct isotopic signature. Which is not unusual, given that he’s an _alien_. So, we’ve linked these--” she pointed to the glowing display of the planet, spinning the 3D image almost negligently. Eddie wondered if tiny little people would go flying off into space, or if they’d get smashed by increased gravity, based on the rotation rate.

**Pay attention.**

“Why do I have to pay attention,” Eddie muttered. “You’re paying attention, I shouldn’t have to.”

“We tucked it in with one of the direction aps, like Waze,” Darcy said, “and the fine print is in the EULA, which no one ever reads, but even if they did, it’s not alarming. Basically, we’ve turned everyone’s phone -- who uses our app -- into a detection device that will notice if they pick up any Symbiote isotope readings, and let us know.”

“So, technically, you’re going to be creepin’ on me and Venom?”

“Technically, yes. But all we can do is detect you, if you’re running around in the vicinity of someone who has the app on their phone. Think of it, like-- your bank calls you if your credit card suddenly shows charges in a different state.”

“Bold of you to assume I have a credit card,” Eddie said.

Darcy waved a hand at him. “Look, the data will go straight to your phone -- and mine. If it’s you, just hit the button that says not to investigate. Then we only have to look at the reports that aren’t you. Besides, technically speaking, you’re kinda on probation _anyway_. So, uh, you shouldn’t be leaving the state without someone at least knowing you’re going to be somewhere. You know, in case some other symbiote commits a crime, we’ll have your tracking information to prove it wasn’t you.”

“Murdock will probably appreciate that,” Eddie said, because that was true. Matt Murdock had done a great job of defending Eddie in the cases of violence. Venom had committed some, before they’d come to an agreement, and of course, there was the whole run down shit with the Life Foundation’s spaceship. That technically Venom had blown up.

So Eddie had ended up not having to sign the Accords, because he and Venom had promised that, if anything else Symbiotic happened, they’d report it to the proper authorities and let them deal with it.

 **Even if it means we’re not even contracted to hunt down and remove the threat,** Venom thought, sulking. Venom liked violence, and it was hard, sometimes, keeping him under control.

But Venom would like being in prison even less, Eddie assumed. So, they compromised.

Compromising sometimes meant eating a street gang enforcer and hoping that no one noticed he was missing. But hey, it was the little things, right? Mrs. Chen hadn’t said anything, at least.

“Aaand, there we go,” Darcy said. “So… the system’s online. Give it a moment--”

Eddie’s phone buzzed.

_Symbiote Detected. Alchemax, San Francisco, California._

“And that’s you--”

Their phones buzzed in tandem.

_Symbiote Detected, Unknown Facility, Siberia, Russia._

“That’s...  not me,” Eddie said.

***

“Boss,” Friday said.

“Yeah, what is it?” Tony asked. He was on a roller, tucked under one of his cars, working on the undercarriage. It was relaxing. Theoretically. He could rebuild a carburetor in his sleep, so tinkering with the car was his way of closing his eyes and saying _Ohm_.

_Namaste, baby._

“I have multiple alerts here that could be of some concern,” she reported.

“Could? I’m retired, Fri--”

“Your Open Sesame program just unlocked multiple layers of security,” Friday said.

“Well, that’s what I wrote it for,” Tony said.

“Yes, boss, but you’re not using it. A terminal at Alchemax instigated the program, which means someone’s stolen your lockpicks.”

“How rude. They’re trying to kidnap what I’ve rightfully stolen. What are they doing with it?”

“Inserting a program into the mobile wireless networks,” she told him. “I’m uncertain what the program is supposed to be for--”

Tony pushed himself out from under the car. “Lemme see it,” he said.

The datadump flickered into existence, scrolling in time with Tony’s pupil-tracking, moving as fast as he could read it.

“Siberia?”

“I have unpleasant memories of that place, Boss,” Friday said.

“Yeah, baby, me too,” he said. “Get a suit ready, and put my jet on the runway.”

“What happened to retired?”

Tony poked the glowing dot on the map. “That did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- Science joke, Scientists meditate to Ohm, instead of Om. Ohms (symbol Ω) usually refers to the plural for the unit of electrical resistance, named after Georg Ohm. Ohms or OHMS may also refer to: Ohm's law of electric currents, first proposed by Georg Ohm. O.H.M.S., On His/Her Majesty's Service.
> 
> \-- Hydra Prep Academy: featured in Season 4 of Agents of Shield. Ruby Hale was a prominent student there.
> 
> \-- I headcanon that the Lewis’s are one of those Very Large Jewish families, of which Doctor Dan Lewis is the eldest, and Darcy Lewis, political science major, is the youngest. They’re about 15 years separated with five siblings between them (for a total of seven Lewis sibs.)
> 
> \-- Infinity War hasn’t happened. Some Time has passed since Civil War.
> 
> \-- In this AU, Venom took place around the same time as the Sokovian incident, and Eddie has been to trial and acquitted for the Life Foundation. He was represented at trial by Matt Murdock which is a callback to Venom on Trial comic book short series, published in 1997.
> 
> \-- Alchemax started out as Allan Company, which was owned by Liz Allan (Spider-Man: Homecoming). The Allan Company became Alchemax when it merged with Normie Osborn's stocks from Oscorp and the last remaining properties of Horizon Labs after its destruction. Recently featured in Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse


	2. Chapter 2

“What have we got, Fri?” Tony turned into the spin, trying to scan everywhere at once. Friday’s sensor packages were as streamlined and updated as he could get them, better than human eyes. At the same time, Tony was never quite able to resist the urge to look around himself. Which would be why he was in fucking Siberia instead of notifying another group of Avengers or heroes or going through the UN or just ignoring it.

“Snow, boss,” Friday said. “A lot of snow.”

“Yeah, I hear you,” Tony said. “At least we don’t have to shovel it?”

“According to my database, you’ve never shoveled snow in your life, boss, so I don’t see how this is any different,” Friday said. God, he loved it when his AIs got snarky with him. Sarcasm, he often thought, was the first indicator of independent thought.

“There’s always a first time,” Tony said. He wished he didn’t remember the shape of the mountains, but he did. There was a track there-- even buried under what was probably seven feet of hard pack, he could trace the shape of it in his memories. Where Rogers and Barnes had entered just ahead of him.

He touched down outside the bunker.

“This is where the signal is coming from,” Friday reported. Tony was probably imagining that her voice was subdued. Or maybe not. She’d been there, too. Urging him to get up, and then finally managing to get a signal through to someone who could come help him.

As it was, she was almost too late. When Pepper finally showed up in the Rescue armor, cursing under her breath, Tony was unconscious. He didn’t know how long Friday had been there, his poor baby girl, begging Tony to get up. The suit was so badly damaged, she couldn’t operate it herself, and she couldn’t dump him out of it. As it was, the suit’s oxy supply and heat systems were the only thing that kept him from dying.

Pepper brought him home, where he’d recovered in the same facility as Rhodey, where he’d started work immediately on the prosthetics to help Rhodey be able to walk again, brain buzzing with the same problems, different tune. _How can I fix what I’ve broken?_

Tony walked; it wasn’t quiet, and the snow crunched under the metal boots, but there was something about the environment that just demanded a slow pace, a bowed head. This place might not have been the beginning of the end, but it was the end of the end. Like a graveyard. It was still and silent, but it seemed that shadows shifted in the corners of his eyes.

He followed his own tracks, like they were leading him somewhere different.

It didn’t.

He could practically smell the fear and battle. Like nothing had moved since Tony departed.

Except. Little things-- He wasn’t sure what he was seeing that was different, but something was. “Fri, run image comparisons from six months ago--”

“On it, boss.”

He pushed into the room where the cryotubes lined the walls like high tech coffins and that was exactly what they were, frozen bodies that had--

That had _moved_.

The five other Winter Soldiers were no longer contained in their damaged cryo-units. Three of them were lined up neatly together, covered with a tarp, like someone had moved their bodies out of respect. The fourth was on a table, covered with another blanket. There were flowers, dried and frozen, surrounding the bower.

Someone was grieving.

The fifth--

\--was nowhere to be found.

“Okay, this isn’t just me, right,” Tony demanded of Friday. “This is, in fact, utterly creepy and weird?”

“It appears that Mr. Zemo wasn’t quite as thorough about murder as he was about his ideas for revenge,” Friday commented. “He didn’t double-tap, boss.”

“And we’ve all seen the recuperative properties of the serum,” Tony added. He couldn’t even be sure it wasn’t an even more updated, advanced version of the serum. Howard had been so secretive about working on it that no one could find any traces of his notes. No one had known he had a remade version when Barnes had murdered him on Hydra’s orders. “Any life sign readings?”

He wished to Christ that Cap had just had the sense to nuke the fucking site from orbit. The man had a goddamn quinjet, he could have turned the whole mountain into slag, Winter Soldiers, notes, Zemo and even a partridge in a pear tree. Everything would have been much easier.

“Two, boss.”

“Great,” Tony muttered. “Fucking outnumbered again. Why does everyone gang up on me, I should file a complaint.” As it was, he warmed up the repulsors, slammed the faceplate back up on the armor. This time, he was going to fucking shoot first and wait for the unpleasant reveal… never.

“They’re either not together, or they’re flanking you,” Friday said, giving him the combat map. One blinking dot in green, the other in orange. Very Irish of her, Tony thought. They probably weren’t together. Or if they were, they were doing so without any communication, which was poor teamwork, as one of them was making a straight run, and the other kept stopping.

He zipped up -- he wasn’t going to get caught on the ground again, either. Flying targets were a lot harder to hit, and he wasn’t giving any-fucking-body the chance to pin him to the ground again. Repulsors up. “Friday, you ready to rock?”

“And roll, boss,” Friday said, and for just a moment, Tony’s heart squeezed, remembering how much JARVIS had hated that phrase. Friday, on the other hand, pumped Marilyn Manson in through the suit’s headphones. “Let’s kick some ass.”

Tony watched the sit-map, and --

“What the _fuck_ is that?”

The thing that rushed the room was probably someone’s inspiration for a goddamn yeti.

Fully nine feet tall and broad as a barn, snow-white with icy-blue eyes, it had entirely too many teeth and goddamn claws and--

Tony darted out of range as it-- threw a part of itself at Tony like a javelin. The goo expanded as it headed straight at him, like a net. Tony repulsed it, kicked off from the wall. “What the fuck is that thing?”

“Unknown, boss,” Friday told him. “Reading human life form-- inside?”

“That’s not a suit of armor,” Tony declared, but _was_ it?

The creature launched several more of those white, slithery missiles and Tony was too busy doing aerodynamic ballet to worry about the Abominable Snowman’s origin story.

“Iron Man--” the thing said. The voice was deep, dark, accented in a way that seemed to mangle the words, like those huge teeth were chewing up each letter before spitting them out.

“Fuck, it talks?” Tony demanded. “You know who I am.”

“We know who you _were_ ,” the thing said. “Now, you are dead, and will be forgotten.”

***

First off, just getting to freaking Siberia had been a nightmare and a half. Venom didn’t like airplanes; the frequency of a lot of jet engines were outside their tolerance zone. So flying had been a no-go option, which was sort of good, in that Eddie was pretty sure he couldn’t afford a plane ticket anyway. And he didn’t have a passport anymore.

So, like getting there legally hadn’t been exactly, on the table.

“What do the Avengers do?” Eddie had wondered.

“They take a quinjet, after filing with the UN,” Darcy told him. “Or Thor sometimes just flies. But we haven’t seen him for a while, or I’d ask him for a lift.”

**We didn’t sign that agreement, Eddie.**

“I know,” Eddie told Venom. Technically, they really shouldn’t be investigating at all. But Eddie could feel Venom’s determination. If Eddie didn’t agree, he was going to find himself in Siberia anyway. “But we can’t do anything. Just investigate!”

**We will defend ourselves.**

“Well, yeah, that’s reasonable,” Eddie figured. If it was a friendly, they could talk it into coming with them.

So, Venom had taken over the body and run them up to coast to Anchorage. Probably generating a fuckton of weird cryptid sightings along the shore.

Alaska was cold, but Venom kept him warm. Eddie used the last remaining bit of his funds to load them up on frozen tater tots and chocolate, and then they’d slipped aboard a NOAA science vessel. Avoiding the crew for that had taken a lot of fast talking and Eddie defining the phrase “stowaway” for Venom.

As close to Russian waters as the NOAA vessel got -- and with a mile of the outside edge of international waters, they’d been shadowed by a Russian “science vessel” which was some sort of code for warship, because Eddie knew what guns looked like, and those were railguns.

Siberia was cold as hell, and the roads weren’t very clearly laid out. Eddie had to use his cellphone several times to get better directions from Darcy, who was watching the Symbiote with her tracking software. It was moving between a tiny Russian town that Eddie was pretty sure he was never going to say correctly, and an unknown facility to the north. More north. Great.

Wearing Venom had the advantage that Eddie didn’t need clothes to be warm in Siberia. But it also meant that Eddie was stuck as Venom. Way too cold outside for a human, even one enhanced by a symbiote. And much too cold for a naked human. “My balls are gonna freeze off,” Eddie complained, just looking at the world outside through Venom’s eyes. Snow. And more snow. And more, more snow.

Eddie’s phone buzzed. _There was an old lady who swallowed a fly._ The phone was technically inside them, somewhere. “Answer call.”

“Hey, hey, Eddie, this is Darcy,” a voice said from the phone, echoing all through their body. It was uncomfortable, but probably better than Eddie having to hold the phone up with hands that would go icy numb in seconds. “We’ve got a problem.”

“A new one?”

“Someone hacked my hack,” she said.

“What?”

“Someone. I don’t know who. They shut the network down. My hack’s been hacked.”

“Are you safe?”

“Probably,” Darcy said. “I still have a SHIELD get out of jail free card. But what I’m trying to tell you is that someone knows where you are.”

“Someone?”

“I don’t--”

The phone went dead. “Call back.”

No service. Eddie wasn’t sure if his phone’s battery went dead, or if the local cell network had cut them off, or if Darcy was back in the states currently being black bagged. He couldn’t call Doctor Dan, either.

“Fuck. What do we do now, Vee?”

**Symbiote first.**

In the end, they got there just in time to see another symbiote and host, full white like a blizzard, burst out through the roof of some soviet installation and smash something brightly colored to the ground.

Eddie squinted through the snow at hot rod red metal lined with gold.

“Shit, that’s Iron Man,” Eddie said, because everyone knew who Iron Man was. Tony Stark… billionaire genius superhero.

**That is Sleet.**

“Yeah, he looks like a Sleet all right,” Eddie murmured. The white symbiote vanished into the snow again, as Iron Man shot at him with repulsors. “We need to help him.”

Venom watched the battle for a moment, the repulsor blasts causing a flinch every time Iron man shot one off. **He needs to stop that.**

“I don’t think he can, without Sleet killing him,” Eddie said. “Just, jump in, grab him, get out.”

**Easier said than done.**

Sleet caught the armor by the legs and smashed Stark into the side of the building. Stark didn’t move.

“Time to go now.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- Rescue is Pepper Potts from the Invincible Iron Man Series Dark Reign (#10 - #33) and Fear Itself (#504 - #523) plots. Her actions in the comic book have nothing to do with this particular story, but that’s where Rescue comes from. It has been heavily theorized that we’ll be seeing Rescue in the upcoming Avengers: Endgame.
> 
> \-- The thing with the NOAA vessel and the Russian "Science Vessel" is straight up fact. My bestie was in NOAA for a while and got followed around by a gunboat for a few tense days while they did ocean floor surveys.


	3. Chapter 3

As far as rescue plans went, Eddie may have had some better ideas in his life. He wasn’t good at tactics, though, so success was the goal, rather than smooth.

And the fact that Stark wasn’t conscious to see it helped. Eddie could tell whatever story he wanted to, later, and it wouldn’t matter.

 **We will not lie for you, pussy,** Venom said.

“That’s a joke, right?” Eddie/Venom got a running start, using tendrils and their powerful legs to move as fast as they could, moved as if they were going to leap on Sleet, forcing the other symbiote to defend their head.

And then he dropped to his knees -- rock and roll will never die, sweetheart -- using the icy floor for even more momentum. He had a moment to be grateful that Venom’s slippery goo was more resistant to splinters and bumps than normal human skill, but it still wasn’t exactly fun…

 **It is a joke** , Venom decided. **We will lie for us.**

They slid past Stark and grabbed the armor, all brilliant red and gold, with one arm and a few more tendrils. “It’s times like this that I wish you were Spider-Man,” Eddie complained, trying to juggle four hundred pounds of broken toy soldier while dodging a very angry symbiote.

**That is not a joke and it is not funny.**

“Yeah, I know, we can’t all be as funny as you are, pal,” Eddie said.

 **What is this?** Venom was poking at the armor, trying to find the person inside.

“It’s clothes,” Eddie said. That wasn’t exactly true, but it was close enough for government work.

A slew of white tendrils grabbed Iron Man from the legs and yanked.

“Pull, Vee,” Eddie yelled.

**He is strong. His host is strong.**

“You’re strong, baby,” Eddie said. “I’m a little potato and I believe in you.”

**You are our little potato.**

Well, that was sweet as a yam, Eddie thought. They tugged, really hard, but Iron Man wasn’t going anywhere. There were a few muffled groans and some blood coming from the person in the suit, which probably wasn’t helping anything either.

“There’s gotta be a manual release button,” Eddie said, patting at the armor-- it would have to be well hidden so that bad guys didn’t find it and dump Tony Stark out of the armor at ten thousand feet, but-- “Fuck, where is it?”

**A what?**

“A can opener.”

 **Oh.** Venom pondered that for a moment, then squeezed his goo inside the suit. And exploded from inside, breaking pieces off everywhere. A huge chuck of the chest plate struck Sleet in the face, blinding him temporarily.

The power source -- a tiny model of Howard Stark’s famous arc reactor -- expelled light in all directions.

“I don’t think that was a good idea, buddy, let’s go go--” they were already moving, Stark pulled into Venom’s mass with them, making Venom more than twelve feet tall. They went straight through the damn ceiling, not wasting time with niceties like ladders and hallways. It looked like the roof had been blown up once, but Venom just tore through it like it was paper.

Eddie didn’t even get all the words out before the arc-reactor self destructed.

Fortunately, falling with style was one of Venom’s best skills. They used dozens of tendrils for air-resistance, slowing their fall. They grabbed bits of the building, or trees, or mountains, and then Venom put them right into a snow bank. It was soft. Cold, but soft.

“You think that’ll hold Sleet?”

Venom squinted at the collapsing building. **For a while.**

“Then let’s make like a tree and get the fuck out of Dodge.”

**That does not even make sense.**

“Yes it does, stop being like that, why are you like that, all the time?”

**Because you are like _that_ , all the time.**

Eddie privately admitted that Venom had him, there. “Let’s go, let’s go,” Eddie yelled.

Venom ran, a black oil stain across the snow. Not subtle. And Sleet was white, which meant that thing was going to be a bitch to see. Blends right in like concealer. Is it real, or it is Maybelline?

**It doesn’t go like that.**

“You watch too many commercials,” Eddie groused. He scanned the horizon while Venom ran. Retreated. Fled, whatever you wanted to call it. They needed shelter before Stark bled out.

**You don’t pay attention.**

“To commercials? I would think no-- oh, there, that way--”

Just a smudge on the horizon, but Venom headed for it, a bit of forest they could use for cover. “Where the hell are we, anyway,” Eddie wondered.

**Siberia.**

“That doesn’t really help mu-- yikes!”

They skated across a flat, slippery--- thing.

A huge cement-- it was hard to tell, a giant square maybe, like a helicopter landing pad, but Eddie was pretty sure all but the bravest pilots wouldn’t agree to try to land a chopper in these parts. A tiny little building was just off the far side, like a cement outhouse.

They stalked over to it, and Venom put out one clawed hand to rip the door open.

“No, wait,” Eddie said. He stared at it. “Holy-- holy shit, this is a missile silo!”

**A what?**

“An underground launch facility for a nuclear warhead,” Eddie said. He’d seen these in various survival magazines.

**Are we going inside?**

“Yeah, buddy, I think so.” Even if there were soldiers manning the place, Eddie was pretty sure that Venom could scare them off, or they could be reasonable. Or something. Lunch, maybe. Eddie wasn’t sure of the ethical dilemma. Did Soviet soldiers count as bad people?

Venom held out his hand, slithered some tendrils into the code box and… the door clicked open.

There wasn’t an alarm -- well, not a loud one, at any rate.

“Cover our tracks, I’m gonna look around,” Eddie told Venom.

**And your friend?**

_Oh, right!_ Eddie had almost forgotten about Stark. Venom peeled back from the man, pale with blood loss and shivering in the cold, and unconscious, which was probably good.

 “Uh, prop him up over there,” Eddie said. The first room was dark, had two chairs, and no people. The dust was thick enough to make Eddie think they were the first living beings inside for quite some time. An abandoned missile silo. That was either very, very good, or extremely bad. Eddie would figure it out soon enough.

***

Tony was cold when he woke up.

Bone deep, freezing. There was barely a layer of slightly less than frigid air around him and every time he so much as shifted, he seemed to scare it away. So he lay still, trying not to so much as shiver.

Trying to figure out where he was.

He vaguely remembered fighting against an extremely hostile snowdrift. And probably losing, based on the way he felt, but it could have been a win. God knows he’d felt worse after a win. And he wasn’t dead, which meant he was living to fight another day.

He licked his lips -- ow! -- and opened his eyes.

His eyelids were gummy as hell and he didn’t want to chase away the tiny shell of warmer air in order to rub them, so he settled for blinking a lot.

He was numb from the waist down, and that probably wasn’t good.

“Hello?”

“Oh, oh, man, you’re awake, I wasn’t ready for that yet,” a voice said, vaguely familiar in the way a lot of voices were. Tony met hundreds, literally, of people every day. Most people sounded familiar. Even if Tony didn’t know them.

But when a scruffy face and wild sandy hair came into view, Tony did know the guy.

Except they’d never met. He didn’t think so, at least.

“Aren’t--” Tony choked, coughed, moaned as all his semi warm air scrammed. “Aren’t you Eddie Brock?”

“Huh, you watch th’ show, huh? Wouldn’t have thought that, you should comment sometime, get my viewership up.”

“Why would I do that?” Tony wondered. “You’re the worst, crackpot, paranoid reporter I have ever heard of.”

“But you _have_ heard of me,” the guy said, holding up a finger like he’d scored points.

“Yeah, yeah, Johnny Depp, I get it,” Tony said. He tried to sit up and failed miserably. “Where are we?”

“Uh… if I say I got no idea, would you believe that?” Brock turned his head to the side and gave Tony actual side-eye. Jesus, this guy was a stereotypical millennial. Tony wondered how many industries he’d personally assassinated. Hair products, at the very least.

“Guess,” Tony grumbled. “You were awake when we got here, and I was not.”

“Go go gadget assumptions, but sure, we can do that,” Eddie said. “Uh, I’m pretty sure this is an old missile silo. Like, with a missile still in it and --whew, like that, yeah.” Eddie puffed his cheeks out and blew air, rocking back and forth on his heels. “So, uh, and while we’re sharing the bad news, can-- uh, I mean, I’m not a doctor, although I know a few. And uh, well, I know one. One doctor. But he’s really good--”

“Can we skip to the point?”

“I uh, I think you broke your back.” Eddie paused, tipped his head to the side, like he was listening to someone on a comm unit. “Or, more exactly, Sleet broke your back, but you know, that’s uh, kinda beside the point because your back it’s… uh--”

“Broken. Yeah, I heard that part,” Tony said. Well. He tried to ignore the way his guts froze and the way his chest hurt. Broken back. He could work with that, he could, Rhodey’s back had been broken, and--

“So, uh… how do you feel about somethin’ really weird?”

“Weirder than my back being broken by an animate snowdrift?”

“Well, if you want to be particular about it, it’s kinda the same amount of weird, only goin’ in the opposite direction, but you gotta promise not to freak out, because you are in bad shape, man, and really, it would suck for me to have you die out here in Siberia. On my watch.”

“You have a watch?”

Eddie did not have a watch; not even a literal one. Tony glanced at his wrists, and they were bare (and a little dirty.)

“No, but I could-- Vee, show him,” Eddie said.

And then… Eddie did have a watch. Black, with an opal facing.

That grinned at Tony, showing off teeth that looked somewhat hazardous on a timekeeping device.

**This is pointless.**

“Ya, uh, ya gotta admit, it’s funny,” Eddie said, crinkling up his nose.

“Look, I get weirder things than you in my breakfast cereal, can we skip the buildup?” Tony wanted to get back to the very important job of figuring out just how much movement he’d lost, and whether or not Rhodey’s braces would work, or if he’d have to go full on cyborg--

When Eddie turned into a giant, oil-slick goo monster.

Almost exactly like the one that had attacked Tony.

Except black.

Aaaaaand, okay, no, Tony did not get weirder things in his breakfast cereal, which was probably a good thing.

“Uh--”

**We are Venom. And as far as we can tell, you have not seen anything like us before.**

“Well, except for Sleet--” Eddie said, pushing himself out of the goo. “Knock it off, pal, you give people a heart attack and then where are we gonna be, in trouble is what.”

**He is not weak and we are wasting time.**

“I’m gonna argue with the whole weak thing, you know, because what is the matter with you people, I have a heart condition and now apparently I’m a paraplegic, and people should just be nice to me, that’d be a real nice change in my life condition--”

**We are going to be very nice to you.**

“Yeah, hate to tell ya, tooth fairy, but you don’t look real nice.”

“Look, we can do this the easy, fast, and quite possibly traumatizing way, or we can take it slow and talk you through it, but Vee’s right. You… you don’t look so good, pal.”

“Yeah, what’s your excuse?”

**We like him. He knows a loser when he sees one.**

“I’mma do this the hard way, if you two don’t stop trying to out-dick each other here,” Eddie said. “Look, I can fix this--”

**We.**

“We, yeah, we can fix this,” Eddie said, and he actually sounded sincere, which was somewhat disturbing. “All of it. And I won’t even say you have to trust us, because you really don’t. It… just works. Whether you trust, or believe, or any of it.”

“What works.”

**Fixing it. Open wide.**

And Eddie Brock, reporter, scandal, paranoid conspiracy theorist, and apparently alien host, leaned down and kissed Tony, full on the mouth.

_Woah, woah, drinks first--_

Tony felt it, like a drop of acid in his throat, that having Eddie’s tongue in his mouth was only the first step toward something really weird and uncomfortable.

**Hold on to your butt.**

That was the alien/goo/thing, but the voice wasn’t outside. It was inside, inside Tony, in his head, in his mind, in, in in..

“Oh, no, no, you-- what are--”

Eddie staggered backward, looking pale and exhausted. “I forget,” he said, falling into a chair and acting like he meant to do that. “I always forget how much better I feel--”

Tony arched in the bed as the thing inside him went on a rampage.

**This is broken, we’ll fix this-- what happened here? Someone put you in a blender? Oh, there--**

Tony screamed as everything south of his navel suddenly woke up and caught fire. “What the fuck are you doing to me?”

“Hey, Tony--” Eddie said. “Tony, look at me, look at me, it’s gonna be okay. Just breathe. Follow with me, in and out. I’m right here. They’re fixing you. Consider it… symbiotic medical care. Venom… they know what they’re doing now. They didn’t at first, almost killed me because they didn’t know what a healthy person was supposed to look like, but they got it down now, everything’s fine.”

There was a rippling in his chest, over his sternum where the arc reactor had been, a mess of scars-- Tony fumbled for the zipper and managed to pull open the flight suit just in time to watch the scars… vanish. They fucking vanished, like it had never happened.

Tony gasped, sucked in a breath, a whole, full--

**Done now.**

“All right,” Eddie said, leaning over Tony again. “Give them back.”

_Does it have to be a kiss?_

Tony didn’t even get to ask before Eddie’s mouth was on his, those full lips brushing over his own, tongue teasing at the seam of his lip, tempting out his tongue.

It was a good kiss-- one of the best, really, and Tony had had a lot of kisses before now. He found himself holding onto Eddie’s shirt, prolonging it, even after he felt Venom slither out of him, leaving him empty and alone in a way that he’d never been before.

“There you go, all better,” Eddie said.

“Yeah, you’re a hell of a Prince Charming,” Tony said.


	4. Chapter 4

“I don’t think you clearly comprehend the gravity of this situation,” Tony said, which was kind of a switch. Usually he was the reckless, crazy one, and everyone else was trying to hold him back; or more exactly, yelling at him once all the damage was already done.

But, all things considered, Tony usually did pretty well.

“I think you’re clearly insane,” Eddie said. He moved like a weird combination of Doc Ock and Spider-Man, Venom popping out of his back and shoulders and chest randomly to stretch tendrils up around the stairs or girders, sliding along. “Vee, parkour!” Vee launched him up and Eddie ended up in front of Tony on the stairwell.

“Do you even know the meaning of that word?” Tony waved a hand dismissively. “Nevermind. Eccentric. When you’re as rich as I am, sanity is no longer a requirement.”

“What the hell do you think you’re going to buy around here, Stark? Take a look at the sitch, as it is, not as you want it to be. We are in the middle of fucking nowhere, there’s a blizzard on our head that’s got all of Congress askin’ what about your global warming now, and in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a goddamn symbiote with a bad temper on the loose in the wilds of Siberia. You want to tell me how you think a billion dollars is going to solve that?”

“My billion dollars, as you say, is out there, somewhere. It’s just a matter of getting it and dragging it back here to fix.”

“You think you can do that?” Eddie asked, and he blocked off the door, turning into Venom completely to keep Tony away from the exit. “In the snow--”

“Uphill, both ways, yeah, yeah, National Enquirer, I know.”

“I don’t think you do, really--” Eddie said. “You are not dressed for this kinda weather, and you don’t have a sled or anything to carry it back with you-- sure as hell ain’t gonna fly outta that bunker.”

“Technical difficulties,” Tony snapped. “I built the prototype of that suit in worse conditions than this.”

**He is not going to listen.** Venom popped a head out of Eddie’s shoulder, all toothy and like a living oil slick. There was something both deadly fascinating about the creature, as well as hurting Tony’s brain just to look at it.

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Tony said.

“You ain’t gonna be here much longer if you go out in that shit. You will freeze to death in less than fifteen minutes. Conspiracy theorist or not, it is negative thirty out there. You will die or your fingers will fall off and then you’ll die. Neither of them works out well for you.”

“So what’s your bright idea, Scoop?”

“First, we need to secure our base of operations,” Eddie said. He ran one hand through his hair and then Venom repeated the gesture with several tendrils until Eddie’s ditchwater brown hair was sticking up in all directions. The goop seemed fascinated with its human host (ride? Partner? Tony hadn’t quite figured out that relationship and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Free healthcare in an alien implant.) “There’s food here, but I don’t read Russian.”

“How do you know it’s food?”

“Opened it. Ate it. Not dead yet.”

“And he says I’m crazy,” Tony muttered.

“Well, I got some advantages that you don’t,” Eddie said. “Look, let’s secure the base, figure out what supplies we got, an’ then Vee and I can start getting your suit.”

Tony blinked. That was strangely logical, and also, unusually kind. No one volunteered to help Tony Stark, that was one of those core tenets that he lived by. Stark men were iron; because quite frankly, no one gave a damn what happened to them.

And here was this stranger, that he’d been more than amply rude to, who’d gone out of his (their?) way to help him. Was suggesting they work together.

“I don’t really do teams,” Tony said.

“Yeah, I read the papers,” Eddie said, nodding his head, his hands stuffed into his sweatshirt pocket, which made him look impossibly young. “I’m just sayin’ Sleet’s out there, and this’d go a lot easier for both of us if we work together.”

**What do you know of Sleet’s Host?**  

“His-- that thing’s got a human inside it?”

**We all do. We cannot live on this planet -- or most planets -- without one. The air does not suit us.**

“Really, Vee don’t look like much, when they doesn’t have a ride. Kinda a little goo-baby,” Eddie said. “Which doesn’t make them not-dangerous, because they can jump you fast as anything. Even if you’re not a good host, they can take you for a while.”

**The hosts on this planet… not always ideal. Riot killed dozens, just getting from the crash site.**

“Yeah, that’s kinda the sucky bit-- the symbiote, if the bond’s not just right, it… destroys your internal organs. In order to live.”

Tony was liking this less and less.

“So, like, that-- bunker. You were obviously there for something.”

No sense tipping his hand this early. “Clean up,” he said. “Those dead guys in there, did you see them?”

**Frozen, shot. Boring.**

“Yeah, them,” Tony said, scrubbing at his teeth with his tongue. “Um, enhanced soldiers, like Captain America. Bad news. I thought most of them were dead, but counting bodies, one of them either wandered off on his own accord, or someone took him. In either case, not ideal.”

“You’re telling me we probably have a symbiote bonded to Captain Fucking Siberia?”

Tony chewed his lip for a moment. “Yeah, l think that about sums it up.”

“Right,” Eddie said, clapping his hands together briskly. “You don’t do teams, I don’t much do the superhero gig, but-- maybe we could consider stepping out of our comfort zones for just this one thing?”

“What’s your stake in all this?”

**Sleet. They cannot be allowed to treat this planet as their personal hunting grounds. It is possible that Sleet can be reasoned with. We will try that.**

“We’re gonna have a chat with the Abominable Snowman?” This was exactly why Tony didn’t do teams. These two were talking about a suicide mission, going out there to track down and talk nice with a Winter Soldier on steroids? Yeah, that wasn’t going to work. But maybe Tony could get his suit back before that happened.

“We sometimes try the asking questions part first, before the ass kicking,” Eddie said. “Reporter, remember?”

Tony exhaled slowly. Yeah, this was going to go well. “I reserve the right to tell you you’re an idiot later.”

**Loser,** Venom corrected. **Eddie is a loser.**

“Love you, too, parasite,” Eddie told him, rubbing his hand over the gooey black head.

Tony pressed a hand to his chest, trying to still the ache there. Insulting banter notwithstanding, Eddie had… he had a friend. A damn good one, it looked like.

_We’ll lose._

_Well, then we’ll do that together, too._

Except they hadn’t done anything together. Tony was alone again, and resenting it. He didn’t want to extend trust to this crackpot reporter and his pet alien, but what choice did he have?

“Okay-- the mission control room is easily barricaded off, small enough to heat efficiently. Let’s gather our supplies and hole up there,” Tony suggested.

“Leave the heavy lifting to Vee and me,” Eddie said. “Spare your back, old man.”

“Loser,” Tony shot back.

**Now he gets it, Eddie.**

***

**Are you sure we can’t eat him?** Venom wondered. They were out in the snow, but it didn’t matter. Forty below with wind chill, and it didn’t matter. Eddie was snug and safe inside Venom, who had puffed up even further to make warm air pockets around Eddie.

There was something intense and almost surreal about running when he was ten feet tall. In a city, they would have been crushing cars and smashing awnings. In the snowy wastelands, white in all directions as far as Eddie could see, they were barely making progress. Nothing to make you feel tiny than being shown just how huge the planet is.

“Any signs?”

**Street or astrological?**

“Haha, I mean of Sleet,” Eddie said. They were making their way to the bunker on the scenic tour. The snow was unnerving in its vast and uncaring restless movement. The wind swirled and danced, showing snowdemons everywhere, but nothing was actually alive.

Freaky.

**We do not sense them. They may have sought out more readily available food.**

There was a longing there, in Venom’s words; a desire to hunt and kill, even if it was one of his own. The Klyntar based all their status on being the biggest and strongest. Venom longed to prove themselves on the field of battle the same way Eddie had sought the next scoop, the next journalism acclaim.

Ambition came in a lot of flavors.

**We could just chase them down.**

“We can’t leave Stark out here, he’d die,” Eddie pointed out.

**So?**

“What’s with you, big guy? You’re not usually quite so hostile about someone who hasn’t offered us a threat.”

**We’re not hostile. We don’t like the way he looks at you. You belong to us.**

“Hate to tell you this, pal, but the likes of Tony Stark don’t get crushes on crappy, washed up reporters,” Eddie said, laughing at the very idea.

**You kissed him.**

“Lord, you are jealous, huh, imagine that,” Eddie scoffed. “Besides, you’re the one who said kissing made the fastest transfer.”

**We might have lied about that.**

“Did you?” Eddie found a pile of rocks, and yanked them up on to the top of it. It turned out not to be rocks and was instead an old tank, buried in snow and ice, but it still made for a good vantage point.

Not that they could see Sleet in the snow. The white symbiote blended right in with the background.

“There’s the bunker, let’s see if we can get Stark’s suit back.”

They moved slower, checking for disturbances in the snow, but there was no way to tell, really. The wind blew the snow around, the snow continued to fall, and Eddie was no kind of tracker. Venom didn’t even have snow on the planet they were from.

Venom ripped off a panel from the back of a bank of computers that looked like they were that shit that fit into a room and sent people to the moon. Who knew, it might have been that old. What the fuck was a nixie tube, anyway? They used the panel to stack the bits and pieces of Stark’s armor, a leg plate here, a bunch of circuit panels there. Microchips and scraps of metal.

They were never going to find all the shit Stark needed.

Venom grumbled the whole time, complaining about cleaning up, and why couldn’t Eddie clean this thoroughly at home? “Hey, love, you could pick up a damn broom once in a while, too,” Eddie scolded.

**You are the girl in this relationship. You do the cleaning.**

“Damnit, I am going to need to block you out of the internet, ain’t I?” Eddie bluffed. He had no idea how to keep Venom off the internet. Like a misbehaving twelve year old, Venom was going to get around whatever Nanny programs Eddie could manage to install.

Venom sent out a plethora of tentacled limbs, grasping every bit of loose metal and scrap computer parts they could find.

“Great, you get to stack things, aren’t you happy, love?” Eddie asked. “Let’s see if we can find a tarp or something to make sure we don’t Hansel and Gretel this shit from here to home.”

Well, it looked like crap when they were done, but it was going to have to do.

**We will take this back to your Stark and then we’re done. We will hunt Sleet.**

“How is he my Stark, now?”

**You like him.**

Eddie scoffed. “I mean, he’s not, you know, a bad lookin’ guy or anything. And he was the first, when all this-- when the world changed. I don’t know if I wouldn’t have lost my mind, if I hadn’t known this shit was possible. I… yeah, okay, I like him. Sort of. A little bit. And I’d totally do him, like in a heartbeat. Wow, that guy-- _great_ ass.”

**How come you’re allowed to look at his ass?**

“You can look at his ass all you want,” Eddie said. “It’s a free country.”

**This is Russia.**


	5. Chapter 5

Well, Tony had seen worse things.

He was pretty sure that was the case, at any rate. That he’d seen worse things. The first time he’d looked at the electromagnet stuffed in his chest, like a breastbone wasn’t a thing he needed, that was a worse thing.

The crash sight where the Mark 1 had nearly buried him in a fucking crater, that was a worse thing. Yinsen’s blood on his hands.

Steve getting ready to smash the shield into his chest.

Yes, okay, that went downhill fast. The point was, Tony had engineered things from boxes of scraps in caves, he could do this.

_This_ , being the sledge full of Iron Man pieces, like someone’s 3,000 brick lego batmobile smashed down a flight of stairs. Not that Tony had ever done that, nope, he was going to deny that until judgement day, come back when you have a warrant.

“Right,” Tony said. “Okay, so I gave you a few boxes full of fake food, and you gave me a box full of broken springs. I think we’re right about even. So you two get to cook tonight, and I’ll… see how bad this is and whether or not I can fix it with the tools down in engineering.”

“What tools do they have?” Eddie wondered.

“No idea yet, but it’s a missile silo, there are computers here -- of a sort, I’ll probably find a damn card-punch while I’m at it -- so there should be tools. Someone in this fucking hellhole probably had a wrench, at least. I can do a lot with a wrench,” Tony said.

**You can shove your wrench right up--**

“Hey, no, now, boys, let’s not fight,” Eddie said, putting a hand on Tony’s chest like Tony was about ready to charge the symbiote.

“I wasn’t fighting, who was fighting here,” Tony said. “If short, gooey, and slimy here wants to shove something up my ass, he can ask first, and my safeword is Edison.”

Eddie’s fingers curled slightly in the fabric of Tony’s underflight suit, like Eddie was trying to pull him closer. “Oh, uh… you know, I have exactly no idea how to respond to that.”

“Kinda the point,” Tony said. “I really don’t have time for your overly attached boyfriend and his syndrome, so-- let’s just stay out of each other’s way, and the sooner I get my suit fixed, the faster I’ll be out of your little Winter Wonderland set up you got here.”

“Do you need any help?”

Tony blinked. “Can you help, Scoop? Because I thought you were just the brick, but you know, if you know where a variable speed -- preferably with an upper end of thirty-two thousand rpms -- rotary tool can be found, I’m delighted to have your help. Otherwise, find me some fucking coffee and stay out of my way.”

**He’s in a bad mood,** Venom said.

Tony grabbed the sledge and attempted to pull it down the hall. It didn’t move far, or fast, but it was moving. So, that was something, at least. It kinda failed in the dramatic exit part of his exit plan, but it was something.

“You said it, my love,” Eddie said, patting the goo bubble fondly. “You want to let us drag that where you need it? Heavy lifting, about the only thing we’re good for?”

Tony sighed. “Did I hurt your feelings? Would an apology do?”

Eddie licked his lip, tongue rasping over the chapped skin. “I’ve been called a lot worse, but yeah, a bit, maybe.”

“Look, sorry, I’m just-- I’m stuck here in a hole in the ground, rebuilding my damn suit and it kinda puts me in mind of the first time I built one of these things, while I was surrounded by Ten Rings fanatics who all wanted me to build them a bomb. Can we just say I’m a little stressed out here and leave it at that?”

Venom grabbed hold of the sledge. **We understand stressed out. We will help. We will not even smack you for being rude to us.**

“Well, we appreciate that,” Tony said.

“Go with him, Vee, I’ll see what I can do about coffee. God knows, I have a damn withdrawal headache, myself.”

Venom slouched out of Eddie’s body, which was only the third most disturbing thing that Tony had seen since Tuesday, grabbed the sledge. **You lead, we will follow.**

Without Eddie to wrap around, Venom was smaller, but no less toothy, strong and fast.

“You’re um… trailing goo behind you?” Tony pointed out. A thin line, almost like string, oozed out from behind Venom.

**We need to have a host, most of the time,** Venom explained. **We can’t breathe this air, we can’t survive long without one. We will die.**

“That kinda sucks for you,” Tony said.

**We don’t mind. Eddie is a good host. Eddie takes care of us. We love Eddie.**

“Overly attached girlfriend,” Tony said, but this time, he smiled. It might be nice, he thought, to live with someone or something that loved him without question. Of course, if Tony wanted undying affection, he could try getting a dog first, rather than an alien parasite. “So, how’d you two meet and when’s the wedding?”

Venom told the story, Carlton Drake and the spaceship and a bunch of interesting things that Tony had not read about in the paper, while they sorted out the various bits and pieces of the Iron Man suit-- “I should get a gauntlet up and working first,” Tony said, and put those pieces together in a pile. “Weapons first, comms second.”

**You are pretty smart.**

“One of the top ten on the planet,” Tony said, without any false modesty, because that was simply the way it was. Numbers and practical applications. Of course, there could be some undiscovered genius out in a trailer park somewhere, which was what the September foundation was all about. _Go forth, young geniuses and change the world._

**Eddie is a loser.**

“Doesn’t mean he’s dumb,” Tony said. “I mean, I’m a loser. I’ve lost things. I’ve--”

_Been nearly killed by someone I trusted because we couldn’t talk things out. That was… that was a big loss._

***

They eventually established Tony’s workshop and the kitchen and living areas in the same section of the silo -- the given reason was so that the generator wouldn’t have to churn more power, and that they could keep some of the areas at a temperature somewhat over fifty. The actual reasons were a bit harder to explain.

Part of it was Venom. The symbiote needed to be within a certain range of their host in order to breathe. Also, Venom was insatiably curious about Tony’s tech; given that there was a limit to how much goop Venom could leave around on the floor to make a lifeline between where they were and where Eddie was, being closer together allowed Venom to be constantly peeking in on Tony.

That Venom provided up to the second information on where Tony was and what he was doing, as well as making Eddie feel better that his reluctant houseguest wasn’t hurt… well, that was just a bonus, right?

Like an echo down a really long tube, Eddie could sort of hear the conversation going on. Apparently Tony would talk while he was working, explaining things, telling stories, generally gossiping. Either that, or Tony liked Venom, but wasn’t all that keen on Eddie. That was okay, Eddie decided. Of the two of them, Venom was the better person, for some measure of the word person.

Yeah, Venom ate people, but it wasn’t… foxes ate chicks, that’s what they did, and there was no sense in blaming the fox for being hungry.

Eddie, on the other hand, was in fact, a _loser_. Venom said it, and while Vee meant it as a term of endearment, Eddie also knew it was true. Unlike parasite, which was scientifically inaccurate.

Eddie had screwed up, big time. He was scrap, spare parts, and not even a genius like Tony Stark could make something better out of him. In a relationship, people sometimes called their sweethearts their “better half.” Well, in Eddie’s case, that was true.

After more looking than should have been the case, Eddie finally found a can opener. Since he couldn’t read Russian, and the pictures on them didn’t really tell him anything.

He’d located some plastic wrapped crackers -- softer than crackers, more like boxed slices of tiny bread -- and a meat paste, a can of something that looked like french cut green beans and tasted like pickles, he still had no idea what that was, and several tins of fish. He stirred a spoonful of white, sugar-sticky creamer into the tea that they were drinking. Sorry Tony, no coffee to be found, but there was a lot of tea. Tons of tea. He could have a Boston protest with the amount of tea he found.

Putting his luncheon finds on a tray, Eddie went in search of his silo-mates.

“Soup’s on,” he said, hip-checking the door. “Well, it’s not soup. More like crappy heavy appetizers and tea. And I’m pretty sure this is Russian for janky-ass vodka, but it’s still vodka.”

Tony held up one hand, and there was a skeleton of the Iron Man gauntlet on it. “Just gimme one minute,” he said.

**We put the power source together,** Venom told Eddie, smug.

“Your pet goo is actually pretty clever,” Tony said, screwing something into his wrist. “He’s a good assistant.” A shadow passed over Tony’s expression.

“What?”

“Huh, nothing--”

He was lying, Eddie knew. That had been something Eddie could do, even when he was a child. It was one of the reasons he was a good reporter. Stupid, sometimes, but good. He could always tell when people were lying. Even when they were lying to spare your feelings, or lying because they thought it was what they were supposed to say.

_We can’t hold it against Eddie that his mother died in childbirth._

“Hey,” Eddie said. “Whatever it is, you don’t have to tell me, but--”

“Just keep being reminded of Afghanistan. It’s cold as shit here,” Tony said. “You’d think, the desert, it wouldn’t have been cold, but we were in caves.”

“We?”

Tony grimaced, showing his teeth, brightly white in the middle of his grease smeared face. “There was another prisoner, a guy named Yinsen. He… didn’t make it out.”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said. And he was. He knew what it was like to lose someone, even if you didn’t know them that well. Especially when you’d said you would help them. _Maria, Dr. Skirth_.

“People die,” Tony said. “That’s what they do. They die or they leave, or they fuck you over.” He put the screwdriver down.

“Or, you meet the right someone, and things go pretty well,” Eddie said, as Venom tucked around him like a scarf.

**We can’t eat that, it’s dead.**

“I know, love,” Eddie told him. “But I can eat it. We can go out hunting for you, later. I’m sure there’s something alive out here.”

**Moose?**

“I don’t know about mooses,” Eddie said. “But I think I’ve heard there are wol--”

Tony whirled suddenly, hand coming up. The repulsor in the palm made a quiet whump sound and then his entire body jerked back with the force. The pulse passed right over Eddie’s shoulder, making his ear pop like he was in an airplane.

“Holy shit!” Eddie yelled, diving to the floor, “what the--”

**Mask!** Venom swallowed Eddie whole, absorbing him, coming up claws and teeth and killing rage. **Sleet!**

Tony’s repulsors fired, again, and again. Each time, both Venom and Sleet cringed a little. It was pain, like licking a 9-volt. Not exactly painful, but unbearable. Shocking. Literally.

The problem was, the weapon wasn’t doing anything to Sleet, and the effect it had on both symbiotes didn’t let Eddie take advantage of the stun.

“What hurts these guys?” Tony yelled, “because they don’t seem to have weak spots!”

“Got a flamethrower?” Eddie asked.

“I seem to have left it in my other pants,” Tony pointed out. He fired again, bringing a large piece of piping down from the ceiling, where it landed on Sleet. Sleet didn’t even grunt, just threw it at Tony. Tony threw himself onto the floor,

“Stark!” Sleet screamed, the viscous goo parting long enough for them to see a face underneath.

“Friend of yours?”

Tony shrugged. “Don’t think so?”

“You will be the first to die,” Sleet’s host yelled, voice lightly accented. Russian, Eddie thought. “And then the first of us, and the American Captain, and then, last, Zemo.”

“Good luck with that, pal,” Tony retorted. “Last I heard of the evil mastermind, he was in prison in Wakanda. But thanks, now I know who you are.”

The fight went on, between jabs of talking, sarcastic remarks, taunts. Venom formed weapons and blades from their cells, slashing and hacking at the other symbiote. Tony was holding his own, despite being a mostly normal human with only one working gauntlet of his high tech suit. But their luck wasn’t going to last.

Eddie grabbed the janky-ass vodka he’d found stashed under someone’s footlocker in one of the bunk rooms, threw it. Vodka burned, didn’t it? Sleet was absolutely soaked in the stuff.

“Tony, light it up!”

Venom squeaked -- a very undignified noise, but Eddie wouldn’t mention it -- as Tony grabbed the soldering iron.

Eddie and Venom dove for cover, and Tony ducked in, lighting the puddle of cheap, rotgut vodka.

Sleet shrieked, fury and pain and fear all at once, and--

“Well, that was exciting,” Tony said, staring around the empty room, a few papers and the remaining flaming patch of vodka.

“Fire bad,” Eddie said.

“Yeah, I get that, Napster,” Tony said. “So, uh… I need to finish my suit. And add on some upgrades. Or, downgrades in this case, but whatever, who’s counting.”

**We are going to make sure Sleet is gone, and the way in is sealed.**

“Just remember, the way in is also the way out,” Tony said. “I don’t want to cut my way out of here with a welding torch.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's our little three-way sex scene; bondage and tentacles and all that fun stuff. If that's not your thing, just skip the whole chapter, there's nothing plot relevant here.

Tony wasn’t sure when he became aware that Eddie and Venom were a little more than just symbiote and host. Friends, yeah, sure. Tony had friends that were aliens, he wasn’t speciest. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t noticed that certain aliens were hot. He was a Star Trek fan from way back in the day, any red-blooded American had the hots for a blue chick or an alien with a bumpy forehead or pointy ears.

Heck, the chicks in Galaxy Quest had tentacles, and the ship’s engineer had fallen in love with one of those. ( _That’s just not right!_ )

And a whole genre of animated films had grown up around Japan’s weird laws about penises, and even when those laws were redacted, the tentacles for bondage and pleasure hadn’t gone away.

Tony was, in fact, pretty sure he’d read an erotic poem about vines and tendrils that had been written in the 1600s for one of his mandatory English classes.

What he was trying to say, or think, was that Eddie and Venom were doing the freaky-nasty, and Tony was…

 _Jealous_.

Venom was weirdly quiet during these little trysts, and the only reason Tony knew the symbiote was involved at all was that, near the end when Eddie was gasping for breath, a soft moan leaking between his teeth, Venom was there, encouraging, urging Eddie on in that rough, gravel voice.

Tony had leaned against the adjoining wall, trying and failing not to visualize. Hard, and trying to ignore it.

Absolutely, he was _not_ going to jerk off to the idea.

He stayed perfectly still, breathing, not touching himself, even though his cock ached and throbbed inside the too-tight flight suit. It would have been nice to have some clean clothes; they did for water by bringing snow in to melt, but even Tony wasn’t going to try to do the laundry in it. The underflight suit had too many circuits anyway, to be dunked in a tub of water.

He was fine. Maybe he would go find that tub of water and duck his head in it. A little close to a cold shower, he’d be fine.

The cold water did help, as far as getting the physical symptoms alleviated. That said, Tony found himself watching Eddie more carefully, checking to see if there was-- well, there was, a certain spring in his step, a certain glow about his skin, increased tactile displays of affection.

Despite what a lot of people thought, Tony was at least a little self-aware. Deep in denial, sometimes, but he knew what he wanted, and he knew--

That he was finding himself admiring Eddie Brock. Strange, really. Tony usually admired competence above everything else, anything else. He liked smart people. Smart beautiful people.

Eddie Brock wasn’t smart. He was no rocket scientist. He wasn’t even a particularly good reporter, from everything Tony had seen.

But he was clever.

He was loyal. He was good with his hands.

Yeah, fuck. Tony was getting a little crush on the guy. It wasn’t unusual. Tony was a very tactile, touchy person. He craved affection and approval.

Watching while Eddie pet Venom, praised Venom… Tony burned with envy. He wanted _that_.

It all came to a head about a week after Sleet’s attack; Tony was picking at his unappealing breakfast -- tinned beans and little salty fish and cold beet soup with no sour cream, what kind of uncivilized outpost was this, anyway -- when Eddie glanced at him.

“Something bothering you, Stark?”

“No,” Tony said, looking down in his soup.

“Don’t do that,” Eddie said. “I can always tell. You can tell me you don’t want to talk about, or it’s none of my business. Uh, both those things might be true. But don’t lie. I can always tell.”

“What is it you want me to say, huh?” Tony demanded, aggressive.

**Why are you so angry?**

“I can kinda think of a few reasons,” Tony snapped, but he wasn’t really angry, was he? “Look, let’s just say I’m doing what I do best.”

“Which is?”

“Overthinking and being a poor little rich boy,” Tony said. “Always.”

Eddie slid him one of the mugs of tea; it wasn’t good, not even with the beet sugar they found to add to it, but it kept them both awake, and that was all it was for, right? “Thanks.”

Eddie nodded acknowledgement, and didn’t say anything. He wasn’t judging, just waiting.

It was weird and made Tony a little bit uncomfortable. Tony wasn’t used to stretched out silence, and when it happened -- because sometimes it did -- Tony would fill it up with meaningless chatter. Because silence was dangerous, silence was disapproval, silence was right before getting hit--

“You and Vee, you’re like… a couple, right? Not just--”

 **We told you,** Venom said. The symbiote stuck an oily head out of Eddie’s shoulder, like an alien sock puppet. Tony didn’t know if that was directed at him, or at Eddie. **We love Eddie. We take care of him.**

“You take care of him by getting your freak on? I mean, I get it, I do, who hasn’t had those sorts of fantasies?”

“Lots of people haven’t,” Eddie said, staring at him intently. “But _you_ have.”

“Yeah, I’m everyone’s favorite rich boy party trash,” Tony said. “You have to have read the articles.”

“That’s not it,” Eddie said. “If you were just bein’ idly curious, you wouldn’t be so angry. You’re angry because you’re thinking about it. And you don’t want to be.”

“You’re together, you’re a couple,” Tony burst. “I’m the third wheel, it’s weird, and--” he heaved a great sigh. “So, I’m jealous. Nothing new. I was hot for the fish dude in _Shape of Water,_ too. I have a kink streak a mile wide.”

**Not a problem.**

“What?”

Eddie shrugged. “You have heard of me, Mr. Stark. But maybe you’re not as wide read as you thought. You’re not the only one in the room with a bit of a rep.”

“What, has Venom been getting it on with Bigfoot?”

**Who?**

“Tell ya about it later, love,” Eddie said. “What I’m sayin’, in case you’re trying obtusely to miss the point, is that Vee and I-- both like you. So, if you want to test out the waters, you can do that. That’s fuck all else to do around here.”

“Oh, that’s a romantic proposal,” Tony said, a deep tickle of warmth flooding his belly and loins, making his thighs tighten and loosen in a wanting cramp.

“Are you _asking_ for romance, or asking to get your freak on?”

“Freak on first,” Tony said, and the distance between them suddenly seemed too far. He seemingly wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Venom extended tendrils from behind Eddie’s back and pulled Tony in, those warm, oily limbs plucking at his clothes, tugging in his hair, rubbing against the back of his neck, and he skidded several feet until he was practically in Eddie’s lap.

“Hi there,” Eddie said, voice dropping several registers. “Happy to see me?”

“It’s a banana in my pocket.”

“You’re lying again,” Eddie teased, and then dragged Tony the rest of the way in for a kiss.

***

In the whole Hall Pass list, Eddie wouldn’t have said Tony Stark wasn’t in the top five -- Anne’s own personal list had included Captain America, right up until he became a war criminal and then Anne had gone on a twenty minute rant about how she had terrible taste in men -- but when his lips came down on Tony’s mouth, Eddie forgot who else might have been there.

Tony did not fuck around when it came to kissing; he’d quite obviously gotten a lot of practice, because his movements were slow and sensual, tasting Eddie’s mouth and testing the waters there. The way his hand came up to cup Eddie’s cheek, thumb rubbing just at the hinge of Eddie’s jaw was smooth, polished.

But then his hand dropped, slid down Eddie’s neck, until those fingers found the join where Venom protruded from Eddie’s flesh, where they were one before becoming two, and he touched _there_.

Eddie felt what Venom felt, knew the instant those fingers moved from Eddie’s skin to the protoplasm that made up Venom’s physical form -- sometimes Eddie felt like Venom was an aggressive voice in his head made corporeal -- and then back, each sensation brushing against a different set of nerves, but echoed, bounced around like a rubber ball in a hall of mirrors.

More, though, was the warm contentment that Venom buzzed. Tony hadn’t forgetting them, and wasn’t treating them like an extension of Eddie. Tony, instead, was acknowledging Venom as their own person, who had needs and wants and needed affection, the same way Eddie did.

The same.

Eddie opened his mouth to gasp and Tony’s tongue swept into his mouth.

Venom surged, and Eddie’s jaw cracked once as Venom filled him up, the tendril extruding from Eddie’s mouth to wrap around Tony’s tongue, pull it closer. Eddie got a brief flash of wide, startled brown eyes, lust-shot and pupils dilated.

And then those bambi-brown eyes fluttered shut, long eyelashes practically brushing Tony’s cheek. From this close, a faint dotting of pale freckles dusted against those cheeks, the slightly tan laugh lines around Tony’s eyes tightened and then relaxed.

 **We will take care of you** , Venom said, and Eddie could practically see the leer-- somewhat disconcerting when you weren’t used to all the teeth.

“How much-- Vee, back off a minute, consent issues, my love, we talked about them?” He made himself take a step back from Tony, who appeared dazed, full mouth pink from kissing, and it didn’t stop, because Venom was still rubbing a tendril across Tony’s lip. Venom had a fascination with human body parts -- and not necessarily because they were edible.

“All of it,” Tony said, not opening his eyes, arching into-- whatever Venom was doing with a tendril down the front of Tony’s pants. “I want all of it.”

That was easy, and clear. Eddie reached out, found the zips and catches of Tony’s undersuit. Venom usually preferred to rip things off, to tear and rend, an aggressive lover, and so, so hot, but Eddie had the idea that Tony might need the specialized clothing for something, and his restraint kept Venom calm.

But once Tony was stripped bare, all restraint ended.

Venom’s tongue, thick and brilliant, bubblegum pink, lashed out, slurping loud and wet over Tony’s skin, heedless, messy.

“Yeah, that’s -- oh, god,” Tony murmured. “That’s the ticket, big guy.”

Venom surged, wrapping Eddie up like a blanket, covering him top to toe. The pulsing black goo that made up Venom’s body squeezed and fondled at Eddie’s body. Clenching and letting go, touching every centimeter of him. Venom squeezed and rubbed at the bottoms of Eddie’s feet, the back of his knees, slithered between his ass cheeks, probed at his hole, all at the same time.

Being wrapped in Venom was being coated in lube and popped, wholesale, into the world’s largest sex toy. It wasn’t teasing or gentle or anything like that at all. It was straight up being fucked stupid. It was racing toward orgasm at the speed of a bullet train, and then slamming to a halt in the station, unsatisfied, and doing it over and over, until he was weary with the hormone surges, and by the time Venom actually got him where they were going, Eddie no longer knew up from down.

He tried to focus more, since there was someone else involved, and if Venom accidentally ripped or tore skin -- or even on purpose, Eddie had long since forgotten how to tell the difference between pain and pleasure, since Venom healed him easily, quickly, and the jolt of adrenaline would still be there, making everything sharper, everything more -- then Tony would need care.

 **We will take care of him** , Venom said. That was accompanied by the kind of internal squeeze that indicated Venom was rolling their eyes. _You are a loser._

“Got found by you, didn’t I?”

**Yes.**

Tony groaned, and Eddie forced one eye open to look, and then couldn’t look away. Venom hadn’t engloved him the same way they made love with Eddie, instead stretching him spread eagled, mid-air, tendrils wrapped around him like shibari bondage. Only the tips of Venom’s tendrils rubbed Tony, nudging plump, pink nipples erect and teasing at Tony’s balls and cock with just the right amount of cruel deprivation.

When Tony writhed, practically held motionless by Venom’s bindings, Venom formed one tendril into a thick, black cock, nudging it at those perfect lips. Tony nodded, then opened his mouth, letting Venom throatfuck him.

Eddie’s toes curled inside Venom’s bodyglove, aching, to touch, to be touched, to watch as Tony was ravaged and ravished. Venom’s grip on him strengthened, almost to the point of pain, rubbed and writhed along Eddie’s body, stimulating him, pleasuring him.

Eddie reached out, brushing his fingers along Tony’s hand, the only part of him that Eddie could reach. Up the index finger, over, and across. Down the middle. And again, sensual, slow.

Tony’s eyes opened wide and then he bucked wildly, two, three times. Through the whole thing, as Tony came, Eddie kept their fingers together, that light, tentative touch.

Eddie’s brain whited out, the sheer force of his orgasm almost pushing him into unconsciousness, and through the whole thing, he was utterly, completely aware of how Tony’s fingers were moving against his own.

A long, ragged silence, and then--”I am such a nerd,” Tony said, and Venom let them both down to the floor, wrapping around them like a blanket.

“Huh?”

“Venom’s throat fucking me and has a tendril so far up my ass I can practically taste him, and--”

“You orgasm because I’m doing the pon farr finger trick from _Star Trek_ ,” Eddie finished. He tipped his head to look at Tony with fondness. “You’re right. You are _such_ a nerd.” 


	7. Chapter 7

There was nothing quite like watching the Iron Man lift off as Tony Stark zipped off to save the day.

Tony looked at the crumpled remains of the armor in pieces on the floor. “And this is nothing like watching the Iron Man armor lift off,” he remarked. “Come on, Fri, give me a damage report and list of suggestions in order by percentage of mission success.”

Friday’s report was not encouraging. He could either fly, or fire, but not both. “You know, I built this thing in a cave with a box of spare parts, you’d like I could put it back together.”

“Sorry, boss,” she said. “We’re missing critical systems parts, and the box of scraps, as y’ve put it, is late sixties tech at the best. We need another recon run up to the bunker.”

“And how do you suggest we do that? That place is infested with Big Foot’s grumpier, frozen custard brother.”

“As much as it pains me,” Friday said, “we might want to consider using our other assets.”

“Eddie and Venom already scanned that place for everything they could find.” Not to mention the fact that Tony didn’t want to send them out again. They’d already not found the pieces he needed.

“My suggestion was going to be,” Friday said, primly, as if he hadn’t interrupted her. “That you both go. I can get the system up enough to be hobblin’ along. If Sleet is holed up there, Venom can engage while we locate and slap in like three pieces, hey presto.”

“That sounds like a bad plan,” Tony said. “I like it. Let’s see if we can make it work.”

When Tony tracked Eddie and Venom down -- they were still in the process of trying to find anything in the stack of ancient VCR tapes that wasn’t in Russian -- and explained the plan to him, he got a raised eyebrow and a “When do we leave?”

“I adore you,” Tony said. There were no long lectures about recklessness, or speeches from Asgard aliens about Man was Not Meant to Meddle. Tony may have, astonishingly enough, found someone just as reckless as he was. And with the muscle to back it up, too.

This was either going to be great, or it was going to be a disaster. He said as much to Friday, while he was pulling on the bits of suit that were functional.

“It’s gonna be a disaster, boss,” she said. “I’m callin’ it now.”

“Love you, too, baby girl.”

 **Aw.** Venom said, peering into the workshop to see what Tony was doing. **We thought you loved us.**

“Sex isn’t necessarily love, big guy,” Tony said. “Hell, I’ve had sex with people I didn’t even _like_ , and rather several of them that I don’t even remember. And if you give me long enough to think about it, I can probably remember a few instances of Hate Sex.”

**Hate sex?**

“Yeah, you know-- I don’t know, I did a lot of drugs and drinking when I was younger, I made bad decisions,” Tony said. A lot of bad decisions. Epically bad decisions, really.

**You are a loser. Like us.**

“Maybe so,” Tony said, “but I always have style.”

Venom didn’t seem to have an answer to that, but Tony was completely aware of the symbiote watching him as he finished donning the working bits of suit. What did an alien parasite know about love? It wasn’t like their kind reproduced through mating. Venom had told him about it over breakfast one day; like tribbles, Klyntar were born with all the offspring they were ever going to have embedded deep in their cells. As the symbiote matured, the offspring would get to a watching stage, and when game was plentiful (Tony shuddered to think of what that meant for a species that could -- and frequently did -- eat humans) they could chose to separate themselves from the embryos.

“Did you ever know your parent?” Tony had wondered.

**We did not. Our parent left us to fend for ourselves.**

“Sounds familiar,” Tony had decided and as a group, they’d silently promised not to talk about it again.

Or maybe that was just Tony and his need to keep the terrible nature of his childhood quiet. Not to make a fuss. Not to blame his problems on anyone else. He was an adult; any lingering trauma that Howard left stamped on him was Tony’s to deal with.

Besides, there was only so much satisfaction one got out of yelling at a gravestone.

Even his urge for revenge had faded. Howard and Maria would never know or care if he gained justice for them; and he knew himself well enough now to know that it wouldn’t change anything. Howard would always be an ass, Maria would always be distant, and Tony would always be a disappointment.

**You are not a disappointment to us.**

“Friday, did I say that outloud, I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”

**We know. We know your face, and how it-- scrunches. When you are thinking about your progenitor.**

“It’s hard not to think about it, out here,” Tony said.

“Because of Captain America,” Eddie said. He’d gotten a short, short version of what had happened in the bunker. Not all of it. Never all of it. Not even Rhodey had gotten all of it. “And finding out about your parents.”

Some things were better secret.

Some things.

“His friend killed them, murdered them. I know, I mean, I know, he was manipulated into doing it, he wasn’t in his right mind, and he was only the weapon. Someone else pulled the trigger,” Tony said, found himself helplessly confessing, even though he’d sworn he never would. “And you know, I understand that, as much as I can wrap my genius brain around, but-- Steve knew. He knew and he didn’t tell me.”

“Well, that sucks,” Eddie said. “I mean, there’s shootin’ the messenger and then there’s deliberately concealing shit from you. He shouldn’t have done that.”

“About damn time someone’s on my side about that,” Tony scoffed.

**We are on your side.**

***

Sleet, of course, was waiting for them.

They rose up out of the snowbank like a revelation, limbs flailing, scattering ice everywhere. **Venom** , they bellowed. **We know you. Traitor. Liar. Betrayer.**

 **You forgot loser,** Venom screamed back. **And reject. And dumb-ass.**

“Does he know how to combat-banter?” Tony wondered, “because this does not seem right.”

“You do your thing, Tony, and let us take care of Sleet,” Eddie responded, still keeping his hand out of sight. When they closed on Sleet, he threw.

It wasn’t much of an incendiary device; they had to be careful of Venom, too. They’d scavenged up a few cans of Sterno in the old missile silo (well, it was called something else, because Russian, but as far as Eddie could tell, it was the same shit his aunt had used under her chafing dishes back at her fancy Christmas parties.

Tony had mixed up some chemical ignition system, and they’d packed the stuff into old glass light bulbs and prepped them as hand grenades.

But they did burn, and the goo stuck to the symbiote like napalm, sizzling pieces of alien flesh away.

Sleet made the most unholy shriek that Eddie would rather never hear again, and dove into a snowbank.

Which was kinda what Eddie was expecting, and Tony was planning for. Tony scurried over to the previous battle site to look for the important, missing bits of his suit, using whatever remained of the sensor package/

Sleet screamed, body contorting in agony. The white fleshy bits turned red and black, a sickening rash like an infection. Despite that, they charged at Eddie ad Venom as soon as the fire was out. One huge fist nearly knocked Venom over, and they scrambled out of reach.

 **Come get us, ugly,** Venom taunted.

Everything happened so fast, it somehow seemed nightmarishly slow. Eddie dodged, dodged again, leading Sleet back and away. He saw everything, crystal clear, the way he did when he and Venom were moving and working as one. He never could quite tell if that was an effect of the symbiosis, or an awesomely high adrenaline dump.

Another one of Tony’s handmade molotov cocktails, this one filled with what remaining gasoline they’d been able to scavenge out of a completely non-functional snowmobile (Tony had sworn a lot about that). Sleet when up in flames again -- quite literally.

Confused, blazing like a roman candle, the symbiote screamed and thrashed, lashing out with burning tendrils. Venom dodged again, leaped and raced. They didn’t have to pretend to be scared; fire was just as dangerous to Venom as it was to Sleet, and while snow was cold, it wasn’t as good at fire quenching as plain old water.

Suddenly the little comm unit Tony had MacGyvered out of a set of walkie talkies clicked. “We’re good for flight,” he said. “Get clear, this is gonna be messy.”

“You heard the man, make tracks, Vee,” Eddie bellowed, and they ran for it-- black against the while snow, fast as a rabbit.

There was a painful whine and red and gold armor blurred past them. Tony could break the sound barrier in that suit when it was fully working, although Eddie didn’t think it was right now. He ran faster, trying to get away from the noise.

Sleet broke in the opposite direction, and Tony took advantage of the separation to fire repulsor blasts, raining destruction down on the hapless Sleet.

“Ready? I’m pushing him toward the trap.”

“Ready as we’re gonna get, boss,” Eddie said, and they stopped running to dig, get buried under as much snow as possible, hiding and insulating themselves.

“Punch it,” Tony yelled.

Eddie used the remote and there was a brief, almost pregnant pause, and them.

**Fwak-THOOM!**

Eddie pulled his head down as far as he could, making himself as small as possible.

“I hate explosions,” he said, and Eddie had a brief moment of panic as his ears rung and he couldn’t hear himself speak, and then Venom wrapped around him again like a blanket, healing what minor damage had been done. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t think-- quite. Get over here. Bring the vessel.”

It didn’t take Venom too long to grab the reactor containment unit, again something that Tony had repurposed. Venom had been able to clean it out of dangerous particulates, although it had made them both tired to do the work, but at least it wouldn’t make anyone sick for being near it, and they’d healed up the damage.

There was a man, and the blob of fleshy substance that made up Sleet. Popped the symbiote inside the vessel, and then Tony made an Avenger’s arrest on the man. “You’ll get a fair trial,” Tony was saying, but the man ignored him, staring at the small core where his symbiote was stored.

Tony sighed. “Now for the fun part.”

“Getting the fuck out of Syberia?”

“No,” Tony said. “Paperwork.”

Venom considered that for a moment, then tentatively offered, **We could just stay?**

“No thanks, Big Guy,” Tony said, laughing. “I’ve had enough of icy wastelands. I want a vacation. Beach, ocean, fluffy drinks with umbrellas in them.”

**Why put umbrellas in drinks? Do we eat them?**

They were still arguing when Tony finally got a clear signal and set up the SOS. Not but twenty minutes after that, Vision put the Quinjet down in the snow and welcomed them aboard.

“Raft first, Viz,” Tony said. “We have prisoners.”

“Of course, Mr. Stark,” the Vision said. “Which are?”

“Get Ross on the line, I’ll explain it to him while you fly. And tell me we have coffee?”

“For you, sir? Always.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the observant of you will notice that the chapter count went down from 9 to 8. I have not deleted any words, I just combined in the epilogue with the last chapter, rather than drag it out


	8. Chapter 8

****

“Do you believe this shit,” Eddie said, looking at the e-paper on his phone.

**It is the same shit, different day.**

“He got off,” Eddie said, flicking his finger at the screen. “Guy nearly kills us, and he gets off.”

Venom paused, tater tot halfway to his mouth. **Sleet?**

“No, Sleet’s at the raft, like to be there another ten years, if they can find another host, then they might be considered for rehab.” Eddie and Venom had gotten a fine. Darcy had gotten a fine. Tony Stark had gotten-- an impressive amount of media, but since he was quick with the lawyers, he’d gotten out of his own investigation without a trial. There were probably really big bribes behind it, but as far as the press was concerned, he’d gone to Siberia to investigate possible corporate espionage (Aka, Darcy and Eddie) and Sleet had attacked him. Self-defense, no need for a trial.

**The human?**

“Yeah, him,” Eddie said. “The other Winter Soldier. They used our case, love, ours and that, Bucky Barnes guy. Mental trauma, conditioning, illegal experimentation. He’s not _responsible_ for his actions.”

**Seems fair,**

“Seems fair?” Eddie’s voice spiraled up. “How is this fair?”

**It is what they did for us, my love.**

“Yeah, but he’s the _bad guy_.”

 **So,** Venom said, pulling Eddie closer, giving him one of those uniquely Venom hugs. **Are we.**

“We’re not bad people, we had that talk, remember, when you first got here, we only eat bad people,” Eddie said.

They all taste the same.

“Symbiote philosophy,” Eddie said. “I should teach a class.”

There was a knock at the door, and Eddie didn’t even put down his phone to answer it. It was probably his neighbor, who left gift baskets of chocolate bars sometimes. After Eddie/Venom had ripped his door off to tell him to be quiet, he was really a much more considerate neighbo--

“Oh, Tony,” Eddie said, startled. “Come on in.”

It wasn’t like he didn’t know Tony existed, he’d spent time with the man, but seeing someone famous in his own living room was a little surreal. Like he expected the camera crew for Queer Eye to jump out and for Tan France to start telling him everything that was wrong with his _look_.

 **Which is a lot,** Venom grumbled. **You are a loser.**

“So am I, Vee,” Tony pointed out. “What’s Eddie losing this time?”

“My freakin’ mind,” Eddie said, brandishing his phone in Tony’s face. “He got off?”

“There’s a restraining order,” Tony said. “And he’ll be back in prison before he can blink if he gets within half a mile of either of us.”

“Like we’ll know,” Eddie grumbled.

“Actually, I will,” Tony said. “Nanotech’s a great thing, part of why I’m here. Vee, eat this, be a good boy, don’t digest it, just, you know know, hold it in your cheek or something.”

“What is is?”

“Josef Sokolov tracker,” Tony said. “If he comes within three miles, we’ll know.”

“Ross know you have this?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Do I look stupid?”

**Sometimes.**

“Thanks Vee, love you, too,” Tony said. “So uh, you know this place isn’t very defensible. Also, west coast, long distance, it’s not working for me.”

“You hear to break up with me?” There was a sharp snap of pain somewhere in his chest. Eddie wouldn’t be so cheesy as to call it his heart, but it was in the vicinity.

“ _Au contraire_ , _mon amour,_ ” Tony said. “Came to bring you another gift.”

“You’re just the Giving Tree today,” Eddie said. “I don’t have anything for you.”

“No, and why would you?” Tony wondered. “I don’t need anything, but you--”

**Have needs.**

“Good to know, big guy, we can take care of those after.”

“After what?”

Tony tossed a thick booklet of papers at him, something like three hundred pages long.

“What’s this?”

”Sokovia Accords, the revised edition,” Tony said. “I’m here to offer you the chance to be an Avenger. New Avenger. Whatever you want to call it. The team. I want you to join up, be a joiner.”

Eddie dropped his phone. Lucky, Venom was paying attention and caught it before it hit the floor. “Thanks babe,” Eddie said, absently tucking it into his pocket. “You want… us. To join the Avengers? You’re not even really an Avenger anymore.”

“I’m a consultant,” Tony said. “On call for the end of the world, and also training and PR, and I still kinda bankroll things, because we’re kinda expensive and destructive and it’s not fair to ask taxpayers to shoulder that burden. But I can absolutely recommend people for the time, and my recommendation sticks. So, there’s that.”

“I’ve read the Accords,” Eddie started.

“Revised?”

“Well, no, but--”

“Read ‘em, sign up. It’ll be a lot more protection for you and Vee, and I want you protected. There’s only so much I can do for you in a friends-with-benefits relationship, it’s patriarchal and stupid. But it’s tradition.”

“Tradition is peer pressure from dead guys,” Eddie snarked, but he was thumbing the book anyway.

“Yeah, well,” Tony said. “Look, come out to New York, we’ll get you and Vee set up in a suite while you think about things, because, I’d, you know…”

“Aww, do you miss us, Tony?”

Tony pulled his sunglasses off to look straight into Eddie’s eyes. “You know I do.”

“You could just say so,” Eddie said. “Try it, it’s pretty easy… _Eddie, I want you to move in with me_.”

“Eddie,” Tony said, and he took Eddie’s hand, squeezing it. “I’d like you and Venom to move in with me.”

“Was that so hard?”

“You have no idea,” Tony said. “Well? Don’t leave me in suspense here.”

“We’re a big package, come as a complete set,” Eddie said. “You sure you know what you’re getting, here?”

“No,” Tony said, pulling Eddie in. “I know what I’ve _got_ , here.”

“All right,” Eddie said. “Live in boyfriend. We can do that. We’ll consider the Avenging offer. Assuming it’s still on the table after we settle in together.”

***

“So,” Tony said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them briskly, “We all know that I am IronMan, and also the consultant, and also kinda your boss, but not really, I’m just paying for everything, so technically, yes--”

“Get on with it, Tiny,” Jenn said. She was tall. Too tall, really, and it was decidedly unfair, because she was tall enough that “the eyes are up here” usually had Tony looking right through her rack anyway.

“Right,” Tony said, and he decided to go ahead and indulge himself, letting the nanotech iron boots lift him about six inches so he could at least pretend he wasn’t the shortest person on the team. He really ought to try to recruit the Wolverine. That guy was short. Burly as a bear, but short. “So, you’ve all met Eddie, who’s been working as our PR rep recently, investigative reporter, yaddah yaddah.”

“And your boyfriend,” Jane Foster pointed out, flipping Mjolnir in her hand like it was a child’s toy.

“So, today I’d like to introduce you to the newest of the New Avengers,” Tony said. “Venom, say hi.” It wasn’t the full team introduction, as the Vision and War Machine were out on a collective clean up mission somewhere along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. That should make for some fun report reading.

**HI.**

“Mask please, Vee,” Eddie said, spreading his arms out a little and letting Venom wrap him up like a blanket. Venom offered the New Avengers a toothy grin.

**Can I say hi again?**

“Knock yourself out, big guy,” Tony told him. “Ladies and spiderboy, this is Venom. A file on his abilities will be on your tablets, feel free to incorporate them into your training program.” Tony patted Eddie/Venom on the arm and wandered off to pick over the table of snacks. There was always a table of snacks at Avengers’ meetings.

He’d just found a jelly doughnut when Jenn Walters came over. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Tony?”

“What, he’s completely qualified,” Tony said. “You’ll see the files.”

“Don’t kid a kidder,” Jenn said. “You know that I saw the files way before today. I’m not talking about Venom, I’m sure they’ll do great. I’m talking about you.”

“What about me?”

“You’re emotionally compromised. Again.”

Tony couldn’t really argue with that, leaning back against the wall to eat his doughnut and to watch Spider-man and Venom playing around in the combat ring. They’d probably wear each other out, and/or break the building before they hurt each other. Probably.

“You know I can’t help that,” Tony said. “Seems inevitable. I--”

“You fall in love, you adopt the kids, you-- you’re like everyone’s dad,” Jenn said. “You’re the best of us all, Tony, and we don’t want to see you get hurt. The team roster’s a little on the slender side since the Renegades left, but if you need to keep them safe-- just for your own peace of mind?”

“Watch out for him, Jenn,” Tony said. “I trust you to take care of him, just like I trust Peter to look after you, and for Lady Thor to watch Peter. You all watch each other’s backs. That’s good. That’s what a team’s supposed to do.”

“And if he gets hurt?”

“Well, his healing factor’s off the charts, really, but-- look, part of loving someone is wanting them to live up to their full potential, right? I mean… the Earth needs us, and, well, you know, we need as many heroes as we can get.”

“I do know,” Jenn said, putting a giant green hand on his wrist. She was very gentle, despite her size. Tony liked her immensely, and she was a great heavy hitter for the team. With the original Thor and Bruce both gone who knew where, he was damn lucky that Jenn had come to them. “And I know you’re working on getting back into fighting shape. We appreciate that, Iron Man. Your less-than-tactically-sound-battle-plans aside.”

“Thanks, Jolly, you know I love you,” Tony said.

Jenn smiled. “I know. Love you, too, Tiny. We’ll… we’ll take care of him, until you’re back in the air with us.”

“I’m supposed to be retired.”

“You’re supposed to be a lot of things. But I know who you are.”

“I am Iron Man,” Tony said.

***

Josef Sokolov had always been meant for better things.

When the World Council turned him loose from the Raft, put him ashore in a country that didn’t claim him, nor wanted him, Josef didn’t know what those things were. He was an outcast; Hydra was, if not completely gone, so deep underground that he couldn’t find them.

It didn’t matter.

He was in the United States now. There would surely be something he could do. Someone who would be interested in what he had to offer.

Josef found himself offering insight, advice, and conversation to a creature that was no longer part of him.

He wasn’t quite certain where Sleet was; the symbiote was supposed to still be on the Raft, even after Josef was free to go.

Never again will they find a host as like to a god as I, Josef thought.

He _missed_ Sleet. It was like having a part of himself ripped out and discarded with no concern. Another piece of himself that Tony Stark had _taken_ from him.

Josef didn’t have much; clothes on his back, and a prepaid Visa card for $500. To start a new life.

Ha.

Right.

**Venom and Brock to become new members of Avengers**

The headline screamed up at him from the day’s paper. Josef spent his first few dollars of US currency to get a paper.

“So… I hear there’s another one,” a guy said to him. “I’ve heard… You know what I’ve heard? Is that there’s a whole bunch of these symbiotes out there…”

“Have you now?” Josef’s American accent was on point. No one would know who he was, or that he didn’t belong there. The man leaning next to him had brilliant red hair and a terrifyingly deranged smile.

“Yeah, I heard… I heard they’re always looking for a good host,” the redhead man said.

“And who told you that?”

“If we told you that--” the man said, giggling. “There might be carnage.”

“You want to tell me, or you want I should break your neck?”

The man’s eyes glittered and then went red. **You don’t want to do that.**

“I see,” Josef said, and he did see, suddenly. And with great clarity. “What’s your name?”

“Kasady,” he said. “Cletus Kasady. And I think you’re going to be our new best friend.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So thank you for following along with this crazy ride. I hope you enjoyed it! I know I loved writing it.


End file.
